This invention relates to a device for removing used disposable surgical blades from handles and safely disposing contaminated blades. During the course of surgery, blades dull and must be replaced by a sharp, sterile ones.
A typical surgical knife handle is made by Bard-Parker. The blade for such a handle has a slot with a wider portion near the rear and a narrow portion forward. The handle has a narrow or inserted portion at the forward end that holds the blade. The narrow portion of the handle has a rounded front and rear with a groove on both sides. The front end is inserted into the wide part of the blade slot and the narrow portion of the slot slides in the grooves until the rear of the slot clears the rear of the handle narrow portion. The blade can flaten and the rear of the blade slot is held by the rear end of the narrow portion of the handle.
In the past when a blade was changed a member of the surgical staff would disengage the rear end of the slot of the blade from the rear end of the inserted portion of the handle using a surgical tool or his or her hand and begin sliding the blade slot along the inserted portion. This results in bending of the blade within its elastic limit so that when the inserted portion reaches the wide portion of the keyed slot, the blade has a tendency to snap upward. This is dangerous for it may cut someone, or it may be propelled away from the operating area where someone will have to retrieve it or where it may be lost temporarily. Members of the surgical staff are reluctant to use forceps or hemostates to remove blades, and if their hands slip among the blade, they may be cut.
The surgical staff must maintain strict accountability for all surgical instruments to insure that none remain in the patient after surgery. After removal of a blade, it is placed in a disposal unit so that an accounting can be made of the disposed blades, which when added to the number of unused blades must equal the number of new blades brought into the surgery. U.S. Pat. No. 4,013,109 (1977) discusses some of these requirements.
There have been prior attempts at constructing a device for removing blades safely, but they have been inoperable and could not be readily understood.